Thinking of Starting a Dropshipping Business?
There is good news and bad news for would-be dropshippers. Let us get the bad news over with first－dropshipping demands very little of you, but if you do not bring it, there is no game. As easy as a dropshipping business is in its architecture, is as unforgiving it is when you botch the fundamentals. The good news? Those fundamentals are not onerous and not complex. They are easy to get right, but make no mistake, a dropshipping business will ask as much of you initially as any conventional business.
To succeed in business takes an almost willful refusal to quit, and a dropshipping business is no different. As long as you have the commitment, however, dropshipping can become a far easier business than legacy retail, it is true. When your online store looks good, and you have even a modest budget for marketing, you are good to go. So, you contact a few online wholesalers who say they are catering for dropshippers. Some respond and some do not, because many will see that you are based in South Africa and are thus a sub-economic market on their terms. When America has hundreds of millions of people, as has Europe, we are small fry for those looking at the big league.
A Dropshipping Business is Only as Good as Its Supply Chain
Of those that respond, some might slap you with minimum orders, some might stick the onus of delivery on you, delivering only to the Durban or Cape Town docks, and some, you will realise, are not really charging you wholesale prices at all. You will not be able to make a profit and sustain your dropshipping business paying the prices they charge. Let us say you surmount all of that, somehow, and stock your store and start taking orders. You contact the relevant suppliers, but they have sold out. Or the price has changed. Or they actually deliver promptly, only for you to find that their site photography is way better than the reality!
Welcome to the single biggest nightmare and barrier to entry any dropshipper can experience. You have clients. Better than that, you have orders. But now, your first actions in your dropshipping business will be to make apologies and start going backwards, because you have been, well, dropped, by your suppliers. It is defeating, it is lousy, and it is not the way to make money online. The single greatest asset any dropshipping business can have, and indeed must have, is a committed online wholesaler that is wholly geared towards your success.
Smart Online Wholesalers Make for a Smart Dropshipping Business
Name your favourite online wholesaler? It is not easy, is it? Most genuine producers catering for dropshippers are far-flung or tied into the Amazon trade by preference, or have struck a balance between manufacturing capacity and current customers, and do not market much, if at all. Moreover, a great many supposed wholesalers work on punitive minimum orders for you to get the price they display, and very few have any concerns for new entrants into the market. Almost none of them will cut a newbie any slack on price, quantity, or delivery times, and that which appeared tantalisingly easy before, now becomes a hassle of minor and major fiddles, costly orders that you may or may not recoup your money on, and a whole bunch of logistics that will eat whatever is left.
What is the ideal? A local wholesaler, who has gone through all of that before you, has had the capital to trade on genuine bulk orders, and is positioning themselves as your local one-stop wholesale dropshipping store. What that also means is that they will have done the research (and be maintaining that research) to pinpoint and stock fast moving items, high value items, and even niche items per category that are common to the consumer experience. In short, your new favourite store, your best kept secret. Every dropshipping business needs one, and without it, there is no real chance of turning a profit and actually accumulating some profit.
Hello South African Dropshippers, We are Here for You
If it is possible to find that ideal as a South African dropshipper, Ecomstock is it. We are not given to bragging, we are merely proud of how well we cater for local dropshippers, and our range of categorised goods and our pricing is all geared up for your dropshipping success. Rather than look at international volume destinations, Ecomstock has committed to the local market, and we have wrapped up all those pesky foreign negotiations and ensuing hassles to present to you, right on your doorstep, with very low minimum order to boot.
Ecomstock is in a constant feedback loop to refine our product range, keep prices genuinely wholesale, and provide superior service to our clients. Call on us first to see how refreshingly assuring it is to know that all of the hassle has been taken out of the merchandise side of things. Now, you will be ready to have a different experience when you next open your store. For local businesses that want to succeed, having us in your corner will make all the difference.
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